The FBI and other human rights watch agencies and groups, such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, have for years tracked the path of anti-Semite and Ku Klux Klan gran dragon Frazier Glenn MIller. They made sure his activities were well documented. They took many steps to dissuade him from continuing in his crusade of hate. They imprisoned him and chased him off. But nothing could stop Miller and others like him from becoming killers and fullfilling the promise of hate they have been spewing for decades.
On April 12, Miller approached a Jewish Community Center in Overland Park, Kansas, and started firing, killing three and wounding others.
Miller, who had been active in the most violent and persistent of ways, had for years advocated for a complete extermination of all Jews in America and beyond. To him, no Jew should survive. This is also a man who ran for senator - as a Democrat of all things - and other office, fortunately unsuccesfully.
Miller's actions however, are not just a freakish occurrence. Many other people who belong to the same group have the exact same agenda and ideology. And there are many more who are willing to join the ranks and fulfill their plans.
At a time of economic instability, prejudicial views foment hatred of immigrants and other minorities. As far as the Klu Klux Klan is concerned, and other Anti-Semitic groups, the only mission worth undertaking is that of restarting what Hitler left unfinished.
MIller, once the grand dragon of the Carolinas Knights of the Klu Klux KLan had actually bested his own followers, by founding the White Patriot Party, a group whose credo was: “The creation of an all-white nation within the one million square miles of mother Dixie. We have no hope for Jew York City or San Fran-sissy-co and other areas that are dominated by Jews, perverts, and communists and non-white minorities and rectum-loving queers.”
The credo of the group is a mirror image of the propaganda points employed by Hitler. Most of them are also rendered from the writings of another extremist, William Pierce, and they include the old notions that Jews control the world through their control of financial systems, the media, and many other sectors of the economy.
What is harmful about the activities of men like MIller, is their ability to recruit men to his cause through publications such as the Aryan Alternative. In fact Miller was so prolific, he posted 12,000 articles on the Vanguard News Network. The network, which promotes all things Aryan, so to speak, has a motto that reads: "No Jews, just right." The founder of the network was arrested for trying to poison dozens of people in 2011 by trying to detonate an IED weaponized with rat poison.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, there are many racist killers waiting in the wings. Even though they have not been connected, the SPLC believes that at least 100 murders in the past five years are actually to be attributed to activities from Aryan supremacists belonging to another nascent, and growing, group called Stormfront.
In 2012 the FBI published a report on the growing threat from separatists movements associated with White Supremacists activists. In fact, the numbers and activity, aided by the internet, seem reminiscent of the KKK's golden moment of the 50's and 60s.
The groups have gained much since 9/11 which, in a strange, but predictable, perversion of the facts, they have blamed on the Jews and the US's dedication to the protection of Isreal. Although a lot of the new propaganda is anti-Islamic, the true targets are Jews, and political figures who, according to the groups, are trying to impose regulations and are dedicated to the protection of the State of Israel.
Although any minority is game, the white supremacists groups are reaching out to other groups and forging alliances, even going so far as to woo the separatist groups of the midwest, known commonly as Militia groups.
Many times, too, federal agencies treat violence by members of these radical groups as the acts of isolated madmen, and do not place emphasis on the fact that they belong to entities that are filled with men who have in their mind to repeat exactly such 'isolated' acts.
While the FBI does track these groups, there is no outward effort by the media nor the federal agency to shed light on these groups for the threat they really pose. The bombing of the Murrah building in Oklahoma should have been the clarion call, and yet, even then, it was treated mediatically and in general, as the act of a deranged man with no affiliation to a wider conspiracy.
This lack of exposure or overt condemnation of white supremacist activity has prompted minorities to complain about the unequal treatment of targeted minorities, such as Muslims, in the wake of 9/11, which are widely publicized, compared to the attention given white supremacists following the Murrah building bombing.
Such lack of focus and exposure of the radical group's activity is bound to cause other men who belong to the group to slip through the cracks and carry out their deeds. In fact, when talking of terrorist threats, no mention is made of white supremacist and separatists groups.
But the numbers speak more clearly of this threat than any media oversight: according to the Leadership Conference, a civil and human rights coalition, the rise in numbers since 2000 is worrisome and of note. That growth reached almost 60% in the period between 2000 to 2008. The number of groups ha also grown to 926 also in 2008, from around 500 in 2000. Since President Obama's election those numbers have skyrocketed. In fact, the Neo- Nazi party, called Nationalist Socialist Movement, has said that the day after Obama's election, 2000 people signed up to their server, up from an average of 80 a day prior to it. In total, the groups is said to have as many as 100,000 members.
Since 2008 however, that growth has been even more explosive as detailed in an article by the SPLC of Spring 2013. Hate groups are now numbering 1,360, of which 1,000 are considered to be the most radical. Obama's second term and his call to regulate guns, although minimally, after the Newton massacre, has reignited the separatists/ supremacists' cause. Any mention of gun regulation, no matter how mild, is enough to enflame the rage of many whites, who feel that their perceived right to own a gun is synonymous with maintaining their ideal of freedom. It also is a perceived threat to their ideal of a 'free state', which is a state closer to anarchy, when closely analyzed.
What is worse, many politicians are fomenting such hatreds and misperceptions by going against Obama proposed legislation. Rand Paul, who tries to straddle moderate and extremist agendas, has even called Obama's behavior a "king complex" thereby deliberately stoking the imagination of extremists who constantly speak of government tyranny.
Such contrast to gun control measures is also widely echoed in the police forces of certain southern states, giving even more legitimacy to the militia and white supremacists.
That extremist agenda is now overlapping in some parts of the country with that of the Tea Party. With that, the legitimization of the right wing extremists becomes complete. Some of their rhetoric is now nearly indistinguishable. At the re-election of President Obama many Tea party members and other right wing groups cried foul and insisted that the election process was rigged to produce a 'Communist coup'. In fact, following the re-election, nearly a quarter of all GOP followers were in favor of secession of Southern states.
All this negative propaganda from 'legitimate' groups, such as the Tea Party, in turn increases the validity of the propaganda of the far right and even the Neo Nazi extremists.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, even more powerful to the recruitment cause of the extreme right are conspiracy theories, especially the one that considers Agenda 21, a UN plan signed by President Bush which has yet no guidelines nor mandatory provisions, a clear sign that there is a worldwide plan to bring socialism to America and other countries. With that of course, is also born the belief that property rights, and gun rights, will be erased by such 'new world order'. The GOP, never blind to opportunities, last year passed a law in Alabama that barred anything that could be connected or be a product of Agenda 21.
The incredible lack of a countrywide protest to killings such as the one in Newton, Massachusetts, and other acts of violence, many prompted by extremist beliefs, are a contributing factor in legitimizing extremist propaganda and politics. The fact that there is freedom of speech does not preclude the general population from voicing loudly their discontent at such hatred propaganda and extremist views. Until there is such a response, loud and clear, to the abuses by the far right and extremist groups and their supporters, the radical numbers will continue to swell and more and more people will jump on the radical propaganda bandwagon, either for lucre or for the purposes of sedition.
OP_ED
Partial Sources: Raw Story, Al Jazeera, SPLC/FBI/MOJO: 4/14/14
But the numbers speak more clearly of this threat than any media oversight: according to the Leadership Conference, a civil and human rights coalition, the rise in numbers since 2000 is worrisome and of note. That growth reached almost 60% in the period between 2000 to 2008. The number of groups ha also grown to 926 also in 2008, from around 500 in 2000. Since President Obama's election those numbers have skyrocketed. In fact, the Neo- Nazi party, called Nationalist Socialist Movement, has said that the day after Obama's election, 2000 people signed up to their server, up from an average of 80 a day prior to it. In total, the groups is said to have as many as 100,000 members.
photo: southern poverty law center
Neo nazi groups in America are also going mainstream by hiding their more recognizable insignia. That signifies a concerted move to gain a wider audience, by exploiting the discontent created by the economic recession and rising immigration numbers.
Since 2008 however, that growth has been even more explosive as detailed in an article by the SPLC of Spring 2013. Hate groups are now numbering 1,360, of which 1,000 are considered to be the most radical. Obama's second term and his call to regulate guns, although minimally, after the Newton massacre, has reignited the separatists/ supremacists' cause. Any mention of gun regulation, no matter how mild, is enough to enflame the rage of many whites, who feel that their perceived right to own a gun is synonymous with maintaining their ideal of freedom. It also is a perceived threat to their ideal of a 'free state', which is a state closer to anarchy, when closely analyzed.
What is worse, many politicians are fomenting such hatreds and misperceptions by going against Obama proposed legislation. Rand Paul, who tries to straddle moderate and extremist agendas, has even called Obama's behavior a "king complex" thereby deliberately stoking the imagination of extremists who constantly speak of government tyranny.
Such contrast to gun control measures is also widely echoed in the police forces of certain southern states, giving even more legitimacy to the militia and white supremacists.
That extremist agenda is now overlapping in some parts of the country with that of the Tea Party. With that, the legitimization of the right wing extremists becomes complete. Some of their rhetoric is now nearly indistinguishable. At the re-election of President Obama many Tea party members and other right wing groups cried foul and insisted that the election process was rigged to produce a 'Communist coup'. In fact, following the re-election, nearly a quarter of all GOP followers were in favor of secession of Southern states.
All this negative propaganda from 'legitimate' groups, such as the Tea Party, in turn increases the validity of the propaganda of the far right and even the Neo Nazi extremists.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, even more powerful to the recruitment cause of the extreme right are conspiracy theories, especially the one that considers Agenda 21, a UN plan signed by President Bush which has yet no guidelines nor mandatory provisions, a clear sign that there is a worldwide plan to bring socialism to America and other countries. With that of course, is also born the belief that property rights, and gun rights, will be erased by such 'new world order'. The GOP, never blind to opportunities, last year passed a law in Alabama that barred anything that could be connected or be a product of Agenda 21.
The incredible lack of a countrywide protest to killings such as the one in Newton, Massachusetts, and other acts of violence, many prompted by extremist beliefs, are a contributing factor in legitimizing extremist propaganda and politics. The fact that there is freedom of speech does not preclude the general population from voicing loudly their discontent at such hatred propaganda and extremist views. Until there is such a response, loud and clear, to the abuses by the far right and extremist groups and their supporters, the radical numbers will continue to swell and more and more people will jump on the radical propaganda bandwagon, either for lucre or for the purposes of sedition.
OP_ED
Partial Sources: Raw Story, Al Jazeera, SPLC/FBI/MOJO: 4/14/14
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